London-based architect Halsey Ricardo was commissioned to design it in 1901. What was a modest structure of red brick with a roof of corrugated iron sheets and a single platform when the first train chugged out, was converted over the course of 10 years into an imposing Romanesque showpiece. Copies of Ricardo's drawings - 60 of them, dating back to 1901 -- of the station as he conceived it sitting in his home on Bedford Square were among the documents the researchers have found.

Across time zones

A railway timetable dated December 1904 mentions two time zones - "Madras Time" and "Calcutta Time" - the former "kept at all stations and which is 33 minutes slower than Calcutta Time." Listed in the timetable are nearly 30 train services between Howrah and Burdwan, their time of arrival and departure conforming to "Madras Time."

Today, a century later, 196 pairs of trains of the Eastern Railway and 103 pairs of the South Eastern Railway depart and arrive at the Howrah station, used by a million people each day.

The different time zones have of course been scrapped. What is intact is arguably the station's most familiar fixture -- the "boro ghari." These are the twin-faced clocks standing back-to-back, mounted on heavy wooden frames, since 1926. Electro-mechanical clocks, they used to be run by a pulsar device and could be remotely controlled from the control office to set the time. Later the device was put in the clocks themselves. They need no winding, and will be ticking away as the station steps into its 101st year.

Research

Curiously, until May 2005 nobody was sure when Howrah turns 100. It was only after frenetic burrowing into archives, spending hours inside libraries, sifting through tomes of manuscripts and century-old documents, did a team of officials of the Eastern Railway finally determine the date. "It was from one of those reports sent to the "agent" by the board of directors of the East Indian Railway every six months detailing the functioning of the railways did we chance upon the information we were looking for. The day the station with six platforms was finally functional was December 1, 1905, even though the first train to roll out of what then resembled a mud hut was August 15, 1854," Soumitra Majumdar, Chief Public Relations Officer, Eastern Railway, and one of 15 in the research team, told The Hindu on Wednesday